


Second Chances

by SunGirl



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, ghost!Newt, mostly friendship but could be taken as romantic, tw: death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:11:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunGirl/pseuds/SunGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Kink Meme prompt and additional suggestion: </p>
<p>"Newton actually died when he tried to drift with the Kaiju brain. He had unfinished business with Hermann (unresolved feelings/tension??) and comes back as a ghost."<br/> <br/>"imagine him haunting the lab and totally thinking it's the best thing ever because he can finally play tricks on hermann and get away with it.</p>
<p>but then hermann is very sad because newt died so he doesn't even get upset or anything when newt moves his stuff around, just accepts it, so it's not nearly as fun as newt thought it'd be.</p>
<p>maybe one day newt moves a kaiju specimen to hermann's side of the lab and when hermann gets back from like the bathroom or whatever newt's so excited to see him lose his shit, and hermann DOES, but not in the way newt's expecting, like instead of getting really mad and kind of scared he just sort of slumps against the wall of the lab and starts crying, head in hands, not even bothering to contain his sobs, and newt is just like what, because he never thought hermann would be so broken up over his death."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this one a while ago for the kink meme but I just got and AO3 account so here it is!

“Newton! Newton, what have you done?! Newton?” The sounds of mechanical apparatus crashing to the floor can be heard, and the voice continues to shout, eventually transitioning from anger to panic, and pleading, “Newton, wake up! Answer me!”

***

Newt is floating.

It’s all gone. Pain, fear, anger, confusion, melting away.

And then images start to flash before his eyes, beginning with him as young child, speeding through his school days, his earning of six doctorates, his teaching position at MIT, and his work with the PPDC. Then the images slow, almost to a stop, and focus, and Newt finds himself looking at the face of the man he has spent the last ten years hating.

Or has he?

Because there’s something there, when he looks at Hermann, something wrong, something that brings back the emotions and the frenzy of thoughts in his head.

“No.” He thinks, “I can’t go yet. Not like this. There’s something still unfinished.”

***

And suddenly he’s back, standing before one of his lab tables, watching Hermann scribble away on his chalkboard as if nothing had happened.

Newt grins.

“Hey, Hermann!”

There is no response, not even a tightening in the other man’s shoulders or a grunt of annoyance. He cups his hands around his mouth.

“Hey, _Hermann!”_

Newt pouts.

“What, are you ignoring me now?” A sly grin slides onto his face. “You’re gonna regret that, buddy. One does not simply _ignore_ Dr. Newton Geiszler.”

He picks up a handful of kaiju guts from the table in front of him and hurls them across the room where they hit Hermann’s blackboard with a wet smack.

The other man jumps more than usual, whirling to face Newt’s side of the room.

“Newton! How many times have I...” But the rest of the sentence dies on his lips. He simply stands there for a long moment, looking somewhat lost, before shaking himself and turning back to the blackboard.

Now it’s Newt’s turn to be bewildered. What the hell is wrong with Hermann? Why is he acting so strangely? And why does it seem like he just stared right through Newt, as if he wasn’t even there?

Sighing, Newt crosses the line of tape separating their labs and stands next to Hermann at the blackboard.

“Dude, what’s up?”

No answer.

“Hermann?”

Still nothing.

He waves his hand in front of the other man’s face, but this has no results either.

“Awwww, c’mon!”

Newt tries to poke Hermann’s shoulder, only to discover that he can’t. His finger seems to be refusing to make contact with the fabric of the physicist’s jacket, simply passing through it as if it were nothing.

“What the--?!”

He takes one hand and sticks it straight through the other man’s head.

And then the pieces start clicking together.

“Fuck. I-- I’m a ghost. Shit. This-- This is so cool! Ha! I can do _anything_ I want now!”

He spins in a gleeful circle, then skips over to his radio in the corner and turns it on full volume. Hermann jumps, shakes his himself again, and goes back to work.

***

Newt quickly figures out that he’s been gone for three days. Three days in which he can only imagine his body was disposed of, his relatives informed, and Hermann continued to scrawl away on his stupid chalkboard as if nothing had happened. That bastard. As far as Newt knows, Hermann’s probably glad he’s dead. Finally, he can work in peace.

'Not anymore.' Newt thinks with a maniacal grin. 'I’m gonna have the last laugh, buddy. I’ll run you so far up the wall you won’t know what happened.'

He starts small, throwing bits of kaiju across the room, turning the radio on and off, standing next to the blackboard and erasing a number over and over again as Hermann writes it. But none of it is nearly as much fun as he imagined it would be, mostly because Hermann doesn’t react the way he used to.

Newt expects to see that familiar look of annoyance, accompanied perhaps by whispered comments about what an imbecile he is. Either that or he thinks Hermann will have some sort of nervous breakdown about the ghost of his dead colleague haunting their shared lab space.

But neither of those things happens. In fact after the first few times, Hermann barely reacts at all. Occasionally he’ll take a deep breath and let it out slowly, and sometimes he gasps if caught off guard. Mostly he just looks tired and resigned.

Not the reception Newt was hoping for. He needs to step up his game.

***

Marshal Pentecost comes to see Hermann in the lab a few days later, and has to shout over the roaring of classic rock on Newt’s radio.

“Mr. Gottlieb?! I need to speak with you a moment!!”

Hermann nods, reluctantly setting down his chalk and following the Marshal from the room to a hallway a safe distance away, where they can speak without the music drowning them out.

Pentecost sighs and turns to Hermann.

“Look, Mr. Gottlieb, I understand that you may still have a certain attachment to memories of the late Mr. Geiszler, but...”

Attachment? Yes, one could describe Hermann’s feelings these days whenever he thought of Newt as ‘attachment’. But he wouldn’t have done so. ‘Soul crushing guilt’ was far more accurate.

“Dr. Geiszler has been gone for less than two weeks, Sir. You’ll forgive me if I still occasionally have a bit of trouble completely processing--”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Pentecost interrupts him. “Processing something as harsh and complex as death will take far more than a few weeks, that I understand. What I don’t understand, and what needs to stop, is the music.”

For a moment, Hermann is bewildered.

“The music, Sir?”

Pentecost is silent for a moment, allowing both men to hear the distant pounding of _the music_ from two floors below.

“Oh.” Hermann says sheepishly. _“That_ music.”

Marshal Pentecost nods.

“I’m not here to question the particulars of your grieving process, Mr. Gottlieb. If listening to Geiszler’s old radio helps you come to terms with his death, that’s no business of mine. But something has to be done about the volume. It’s distracting nearly everyone who works in the vicinity of your lab. Surely you don’t need to hear it _quite_ so loudly?”

Hermann stands there a moment, staring uncomfortably at his shoes.

“Believe me, Marshal, if it were up to me the music wouldn’t be playing at all.”

Now it’s Pentecost’s turn to be confused.

“And in what way is it _not_ up to you? _Who else_ could it possibly be up to?”

“Newton.” Hermann says tiredly, knowing full well how insane he sounds. “He’s... I think there’s some part of him still left here. It started about a week ago, all the same things happening just like they used to, the music playing too loudly, chalk disappearing... I’ll turn around and my desk will be in complete disarray, sometimes he still throws bits of kaiju over to my side of the labora--”

Pentecost holds up a hand, frowning deeply.

“Mr. Gottlieb, perhaps it would be a good idea for you to schedule a visit with one of our analysts? I think you might feel--”

“N-No, I...” Hermann struggles to explain. “I know it sounds insane, but... but I...” And after a moment he gives up. “I’ll see if I can’t do something about the radio, Sir.”

***

Meanwhile, Newt has been busy back at the lab.

It’s both harder and easier to move things as a ghost. Easier because you don’t have to worry about injuring yourself with more weight than you can handle, but harder because it takes a lot more concentration.

Despite this, however, Newt has managed to move an entire lab table, containing a large portion of a kaiju’s liver, over to Hermann’s side of the room. It’s wet and messy and probably stinks like hell, although sense of smell is apparently not something ghosts need, because he doesn’t have one anymore.

Newt grins to himself as he hears Hermann’s returning footsteps in the hall. Oh yeah, this one will get him for sure.

He goes over to his radio and switches it off. He wants to hear every bit of this.

Hermann enters the lab with his eyes on the floor, and doesn’t even notice the kaiju specimen until he’s almost standing right in front of it. Newt feels a pang of victory as he sees the other man’s knuckles go white on the handle of his cane.

But Hermann doesn’t shout. He doesn’t curse Newt’s name, or say what an idiot he is, that he’s insufferable, that he honestly doesn’t know how Newt stands himself. He doesn’t go red and rigid with rage in that ridiculous way that always made Newt laugh. He doesn’t look frightened either. There is no running from the room, no begging Newt in a terrified whisper to leave him in peace.

Newt watches with confusion as Hermann shakily crosses the distance to his desk and sinks into his chair. He lets his cane fall unceremoniously to the ground, not bothering to prop it against the desk where it will be reachable later.

And Newt looks on in utter shock as Hermann buries his face in his hands, shoulders shaking with sobs.

'What?!' He thinks, his mind refusing to understand what he is seeing. 'What’s going on?! Why is he so upset? It’s just a little liver, some mess...'

But deep down, Newt already knows that Hermann isn’t crying about the stupid kaiju organs. He’s crying for him. For Newt. Because Newt is dead, and try as he might there’s nothing he can do to change that fact.

There’s nothing civilized about the crying either, none of the stuffiness and overpropiety that Newt has always assumed permeates every aspect of Hermann’s existence.

In fact, Newt isn’t really sure that what’s happening here could be called crying.

Children cry when they drop their ice cream, or their parents don’t give them their way. This is nothing like that.

Hermann isn’t crying. He’s weeping, bawling, lamenting. His entire body is shaking, his face red and blotchy and streaked with tears. He slams a fist down onto his desk, wiping his eyes furiously, before covering his face with his hands again. His sobs are raw and ragged and full of anguish, as if they’re being ripped painfully from somewhere deep inside him.

Mourning. That’s what this is. Herman Gottlieb is not _crying_ for Newt. He is mourning him. And Newt can do nothing but watch in disbelief.

After a moment, Newt notices that Hermann is pulling open a drawer in his desk with shaking hands. He takes out a small recording device, seemingly unable to really look at it, and pushes the button with his thumb.

Newt feels his stomach drop as his own voice fills the room.

“Unscientific aside, Herman, if you’re listening to this... Well, I’m either alive and have proven what I’ve just done works, in which case, ha, I won, or I’m dead. And I’d like you to know that it is all your fault, it really is, alright? You drove me to this. In which case--” Herman stops the recording and rewinds, his sobs already redoubling, and again Newt’s voice intones, “...it is all your fault, it really is, alright? You drove me to this--”

Hermann hits rewind again, and again Newt hears himself say those terrible words,  
“It is all your fault... you drove me to this...”

_It’s all your fault. You drove me to this._

_It’s all your fault._

The recording plays again, and again, and again, and Newt realizes that Hermann isn’t going to stop, that he’s doing this on purpose, that he’s knowingly torturing himself with the other man’s last words.

And suddenly Newt is so sick with himself he wants to die all over again.

How could he do something like this? How could he leave that message, his last message? It doesn’t matter that this is Hermann. No one deserves that. No one deserves those words ringing in their ears for the rest of their life. And this is worse even than that, because Newt’s words can be played off of a recording, every time as if they were being said for the first time.

_It’s all your fault. You drove me to this._

_It’s all your fault. You drove me to this._

_It’s all your fault. You drove me to this._

_It’s all y--_

“Stop!” Newt screams, unable to stand the look on his former partners face. But of course Hermann can’t hear him. All he can hear of Newt is the hatred, the blame, the gloating voice telling him, ‘I’m dead and it’s your doing. Have fun with your guilt, sucker.’

“Stop! Hermann stop, please! I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean it, I swear! Stop!!!”

Newt wants desperately to reach out and put a hand on Hermann’s shoulder, but he’s already learned that while his ghost essence can move inanimate or dead objects, he’ll pass right through anything living.

Instead he does the next best thing.

He rips the recorder from Herman’s grip and flings it across the room where it crashes against the wall, falls to the ground, then sputters and finally dies.

“It is all your-- it’s all y-your-- it’s all-- it--”

And then there is blissful silence.

Hermann sits frozen in his chair, too shocked to continue crying. At last there is fear on his face, but now it doesn’t give Newt even the slightest satisfaction.

“Newton?” Hermann whispers into the silence. “N-Newt?”

“I’m here!” Newt wants to scream. “I’m right here and I’m so sorry, it isn’t your fault, I promise please don’t go on like this!”

But whether he says those things or not doesn’t really matter. Hermann won’t hear it.

‘No.’ Newt realizes with a sudden thrill of euphoria, ‘But he _could see it!’_

He rushes over to Hermann’s blackboard, tripping on a cardboard box as he goes, spilling its contents and startling Hermann.

Reaching the blackboard he grabs an eraser and begins furiously wiping away Hermann’s calculations, for the first time not even thinking about being caught or reprimanded.

Once he’s cleared enough space, he picks up the chalk and scrawls a message in all capital letters, underlining it for good measure.

_ IT ISN’T YOUR FAULT. _

But Hermann’s reaction is the last thing Newt was hoping for.

He bursts into tears again.

“No-- don’t-- why are you--?”

_Don’t cry._ Newt writes quickly. _Please don’t cry._

And Hermann tries. He really does. He tries to regulate his breathing, to wipe the tears out of his eyes, but he can only manage to calm himself down enough to choke out,

“I-I’m sorry, Newt. I’m s-so s-s-sorry...”

_No._ Comes the immediate answer on the blackboard. _I’m sorry. What I said was_

The writing pauses, then begins again on a new sentence.

_I didn’t mean what I said. I didn’t mean for you to actually hear it. Not if I was really dead._ Newt pauses, realizes that doesn’t make much sense, erases more equations, and writes, _I never really planned on actually dieing. I never thought about what it would mean if I did. That you’d have to hear that, and think I really blamed you._

Newt stops again, watching Hermann read what he’s written, lips moving silently along with the words, his face somehow heartbroken and hopeful at the same time.

Newt clears more space on the blackboard and writes, _But I don’t blame you. And you shouldn’t blame yourself. I did plenty of stupid, life threatening things before I ever met you, this just happened to be the one that actually killed me._

Hermann just sits there for a long moment, tears still falling, although his sobs have subsided. Then finally he says in a hoarse whisper,

“I-I’m still sorry. I’m sorry for the way I treated you all these years, for mocking you, for dismissing you, I never meant, I didn’t think, I... I’m sorry.”

_I’m sorry too._ Newt writes. _I’m sorry about all the stuff I said to you. Or about you. I’m sorry for a lot of things._ He pauses, then adds, _And I accept your apology._

At long last Hermann manages a weak smile.

“And I yours.”

Suddenly Newt feels warmth filling him, feels calm, and at last he understands the feeling that pulled him back here, that wouldn’t let him leave the waking world just quite yet. He’s been staying in the lab on borrowed time, but not, as he imagined, to finally settle the quarrel he and Hermann have fought since the day they first met.

No, Newt is here to bring an end to all of that. To make peace. To put things right and set the record straight between the two. Maybe it isn’t a second chance at life, but it is a second chance, however brief, for both men to experience true friendship.

It’s too bad they’ve had such a short time, compared to most, just a few minutes really. Then again, maybe they’ve had more like ten years.

Whichever perspective though, now it has to end. Sad, yes, maybe even unfair, but that’s life sometimes. Or, in Newt’s case, death. And yet Newt feels strangely calm about it all. He’s safe, nothing can touch him. He doesn’t feel frightened, as he always imagined he would, and now that things are settled with Hermann, he doesn’t even feel much regret. Just the knowledge that it’s time. And though he never imagined he would be, he feels ready.

_I think it’s time for me to go._ He writes on the blackboard, and Hermann nods, seeming to accept, even if he doesn’t quite understand.

Newt walks to stand beside Hermann’s chair, still holding the chalk so that the other man can track his movements by watching the small white cylinder. He bends down and picks up the discarded cane, holding it out.

After a moment Herman takes it, and then his eyes follow the chalk as Newt crouches on the cement floor and scrawls his last message.

***

The chalk falls to the ground with the tiniest of sounds, and there is nothing left of Doctor Newton Geiszler except memories and a single word written messily of the floor, a message whose meaning only Hermann will truly understand.

_Thanks._


End file.
